Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Self-Delusion at Anti-Mobilization Rally Today

This leaflet was distributed at the New York haredi anti-draft demo, a mass rally protesting ( see here, too) Israel's intent to have as many men as possible fulfill the basic civic responsibility - and a Jewish one, as well - to help one's fellow Jew, in this case, to protect and defend the lives of millions from terror and war:-

I have blogged in the past about the rape of Jewish women in Hebron in 1834.The situation of Jews in Eretz-Yisrael "before Zionism" was bad.Here is something concise:

From
the beginning of Muslim Turkish rule in 1516, Jews had to pass Muslims
on their left side, the side of Satan (David Landes, "Palestine Before
the Zionists." Commentary, February 1976). Sultan Murad III decreed
death for all Jews of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, but later commuted the
sentence (Jacob de Haas, History of Palestine, New York, 1934).

In 1586, the famous Ramban Synagogue of the Old City of Jerusalem was
seized by the Muslim authorities. This had been the last synagogue in
Jerusalem remaining in Jewish hands (Ben Gurion, Israel, Tel Aviv,
1971).

One single Jew survived the Muslim massacre in the holy city of Safad in
1660 (Jacob de Haas, History of Palestine, New York, 1934).

In 1775, Muslim mob violence against the Jews of Hebron was incited by
the infamous blood libel (Samuel Katz, Battleground: Fact and Fantasy in
Palestine, New York, 1973).

The Albanian born Mamluk "Arab", called "the Butcher", terrorized the
land with his sadistic exploits through the late 1700's (Jacob de Haas,
History of Palestine, New York, 1934).

To be permitted to pray by the Wailing Wall, the Jews paid a high annual
rent to the Arab whose property adjoined it. They paid protection money
to Muslim officials, already paid by the Turkish Government, for fear
of desecration of the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives,
and of Rachel's Tomb (David Landes, Palestine Before the Zionists,
1976).

In the 1830's, during the brief Egyptian reign over Palestine, the Jews
found themselves caught between the ravages of the Egyptian soldiers and
the multi-ethnic Muslim rebels who fought them:

"Forty thousand fellahin rushed on Jerusalem... The mob
entered, and looted the city for five or six days. The Jews were the
worst sufferers, their homes were sacked and their women were violated"
(Jacob de Haas, History of Palestine, New York, 1934).

In the early seventeenth
century a pair of Christian visitors to Safed told of life for the Jews:
"Life here is the poorest and most miserable that one can imagine." Because
of the harshness of Turkish rule and its crippling dhimmi oppressions,
the Jews "pay for the very air they breathe."[29] Yet at the turn of the
century, the Jewish population had grown from 8,000-10,000 (in 1555) to
between 20,000 and 30,000 souls.

the marauders
were everywhere -- Bedouin raiders, general anarchy, tax corruption --
with the additional tax burden that aimed only at Jews. Yet the Jewish
communities of Judah-cum-Palestine "still held on all over the country.
... in Hebron ... Gaza, Ramle, Sh'chem [Nablus], Safed.... Acre, Sidon,
Tyre, Haifa, Irsuf, Caesarea, and El Arish; and Jews continued to live
and till the soil in Galilean villages."

In 1625,
the local ruler of Jerusalem persecuted the Jews mercilessly in defiance
of orders from the authorities in Damascus and Constantinople. It was not
unusual, when the countryside suffered from drought, for the Moslem mob
to attack "Jewish sinners who drank wine and thus caused the rains to stop!"
To buy off the attackers, Jews had to borrow money from rich Moslems at
compound interest, under threats of further attacks if they failed to repay

In the 1800s the
Jews continued to suffer the same discriminatory practices as other non-Muslim
"infidels,"[58] which "in many places throughout Syria and Palestine" meant
"oppression, extortion, and violence by both the local authorities and
the Muslim population."

About Me

American born, my wife and I moved to Israel in 1970. We have lived at Shiloh together with our family since 1981. I was in the Betar youth movement in the US and UK. I have worked as a political aide to Members of Knesset and a Minister during 1981-1994, lectured at the Academy for National Studies 1977-1994, was director of Israel's Media Watch 1995-2000 and currently, I work at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem. I was a guest media columnist on media affairs for The Jerusalem Post, op-ed contributor to various journals and for six years had a weekly media show on Arutz 7 radio. I serve as an unofficial spokesperson for the Jewish Communities in Judea & Samaria.